1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microbial detection apparatus, a microbial detection method, and a sample container used therein.
2. Background Art
The detection of microbes or the determination of microbial counts is practiced, for example, in pharmaceutical or food factories or regenerative medical facilities, as management for safety and health that stops the microbial contamination of products before it starts. In particular, the determination of microbial counts is conducted under the provisions of the Japanese Pharmacopoeia on products or raw materials in pharmaceutical factories as well as on air, the surface of walls or workers' gloves, etc., within pharmaceutical factories. The determination of microbial counts is also conducted in food factories with the introduction of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and conducted as inspection of the food factories themselves or their working process on food products as well as on the surface of walls, floors, or cookware such as cutting boards and kitchen knifes.
The determination of microbial counts is generally performed by a culture method. The culture method is a microbial-count determination method which comprises: for liquid samples, directly plating the samples onto an agar plate medium or for samples in a state other than liquid, plating a liquid containing microbes washed out of the samples, onto a medium; culturing the microbes on the medium; and counting the number of formed colonies by use of the fact that one microbe forms one colony.
Another general approach is a membrane filter (MF) method by which microbial counts are determined using a membrane filter. The MF method is a determination method which comprises: filtering samples through a membrane filter to capture microbes; placing the membrane filter having the captured microbes, onto an agar plate medium and culturing the microbes thereon; and counting the number of colonies. Alternatively, a method without the use of culture comprises: spraying a mist of an ATP extraction reagent for extracting adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from within microbes and a luminescent reagent containing luciferase and luciferin, onto a membrane filter having the captured microbes; photographing, using a CCD (charge coupled device) camera, the bright points of luminescence generated through the luciferase-luciferin reaction with ATP; and determining microbial counts (Japanese Patent Application No. 9-317792).